, 1887-12-21
IN A JAPANESE HOTEL.
"Ruhamnh' Tells of tho Trials of n
Misunderstanding Rooms.

"Ruhamnh" Tells of the Trials of n
Misunderstanding Rooms.
At midnight we came up the one long
street that constitutes the village of
Niltko, INT seven ~jinrickishas rafting
into the hotel court and fourteen coolies
shouting to n another and altogether,
reused the house and the whole neigh
borhood. Peaceful sleepers upstairs were
reused, looked out at us, and banged the
screens shut angrily. The Japanese bed
is the floor, with a wooden box under
the neck for n pillow and n cotton
wadded comforter for n covering. The
mats are an inch or two thick, made of
soft straw, with n finely woven top sur
face, and it is to preserve these soft floor
mats that shoes are not worn in the
house. For the foreigner the japanese
landlord allows five or six futons or
wadded comforters, and they make n
tolerable mattress, although not springy,
and rather apt to feel damp and smell
musty. The traveller carries his own
sheets, wooden blankets and feather pill
lows, and, above all, flea powder, which
is the most necessary part of the bed, if
it is designed for rest at all.
The straw mats and the futons are the
special haunts and homes of the fleas,
and without n liberal busting of every
part of the coverings, and all about the
edges, it is impossible to sleep. If the
powder is fresh and strong there is a
grim satisfaction in the morning in look
ing over the edges of the futons, and
watching the dead and dying heas,
whose death agonies are as great as
those of le%viathans. This sleeping on the
floor on a pile of cotton comforters is
not really comfortable, and, coupled
with the fatigues of walking and noun
tain climbing, stiffens ones joints sadly
over night, and would soon bring on
rheumatism. By day the futons are
piled in closets out Of sight or hung
over the balconies to air, and if the SER
wants forget to bring them in before
sunset the airing makes them damper
than ever.
The only walls of the rooms are the
paper screens that slide in grooves, and
if one's next neighbor is curious he slips
the screen n little or pokes a hole through
the paper. a whisper or a pin drop can
be heard from room TO room, and a good
Anglo-Saxon snorer would be heard all
over a Japanese hotel, and probably rock
the whole structure with his solo. APP
parently the Japanese never snore, or
NhRS AAS lAoAtA Il lit III llth lOllllg
as one never hears any stock anecdotes
of their disturbances at inns. The outer
gallery or balcony on which all the rooms
open as the common hall by day, is closed
in solidly Mt night with wooden shutters,
that make a %thunderous rumbling at dusk
when they are put up, and another and
worse one at dawn when they are showed
aside. Baths at a Japanese inn are al
WAYS made ren6V at NIGHT md the ti,ba
are large and hot water plentiful. The
morning bath is not a ceremonious affair
at all, the guests being expected to dip
their faces and hands into shallow copper
basins that with a bucket Of water &C.
cupy u shelf fastened outside the balcony
rail. Ono gets q good view of the land
scape, or the town, or the hotel court.
yard, according as the balcony fronts,
and the pleasure is also enjoyed in the
reverse way.-"Ruhamah" in Globe
Democrat